In very simple terms, the idea of GNEP is to develop the technology and facilities to reprocess spent fuel from nuclear reactors. It’s good for global warming, it will keep nuclear materials out of the hands of evildoers and it helps with that little problem of what to do with all that radioactive waste from reactors. The U.S. Department of Energy likes it.

From Energy Sec. Samuel Bodman in May:

“For Americans, pursuing nuclear power is wise policy; for industry it can be good business; internationally, it is unmatched in its ability to serve as a cornerstone of sustainable economic development, while offering enormous potential to satisfy the world’s increasing demand for energy in a clean, safe and proliferation-resistant manner.”

Trouble is, there are lots of uncrossed t’s and undotted i’s. Alvarez released a short, informal report earlier this year highlighting some wee omissions including a lack of a plan for what will be done with hundreds of tons of plutonium created by GNEP. Alvarez is not alone in his concerns, which were echoed by the Energy and Water Appropriations Committee of Congress in May 2006:

“The Department (of Energy) has failed to produce a complete accounting of the estimated volumes, composition, and disposition of the waste streams that will be involved in GNEP. The Department has also failed to produce even the most rudimentary estimate of the life-cycle costs of GNEP. Before the Department can expect the Congress to fund a major new initiative, the Department should provide Congress with a complete and credible estimate of the life-cycle costs of the program.”

That might give one pause if you consider what’s going on right now at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington. At the home of the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, an effort by the Department of Energy to cleanup decades of radioactive waste is years and years off schedule and billions (with a “b”) of dollars over budget. The state Department of Ecology is so mad, they’re talking to the DOE in closed door negotiations, under threat, it appears, of taking the department to court.

In an interview today, Alvarez said that after 25 years of cleanup, DOE has treated only 1 percent of the worst kind of nuclear waste for disposal. “It’s not at all been successful,” he said. “It’s a cautionary warning.”

UPDATE:
Came across this document sent to me from Gerry Pollet with Heart of America Northwest, a watchdog group. It’s Ecology’s comments on GNEP. As with the comments from Congress, it calls into question the ambiguity surrounding GNEP.